


If We Listen to Each Other’s Heart

by Kayndred



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blushing, Fluff and Angst, Glitter Keith, Hopeful Ending, M/M, PTSD John, Psychological Trauma, Romance, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-06 00:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13399266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayndred/pseuds/Kayndred
Summary: After a protracted war against the Galra Empire, the Altean-Human Coalition has begun the tentative healing process across the galaxy. Included in these efforts is Takashi Shirogane, a POW recently recovered from a Galra lab after a year of torture and captivity. Equal parts casualty and experiment, Shiro’s condition is… delicate, to be polite. A ward of the Intergalactic Support, Rehabilitation, and Recovery System on Arus, Shiro is looking at several lonely years of rotating Support Partners before being allowed to return to Earth.That is until he’s partnered with Keith, a recent transfer from another of the ISRRS base. Despite having his own slew of Galra related problems, the blunt young man might be the answer to Shiro’s loneliness.





	If We Listen to Each Other’s Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Sheith piece for the Aphelion Zine! I want to give a big shout out to the Aphelion team for giving me the opportunity to write this and an extra special shout out to Alex for handholding and encouraging and just being the sweetest person about this whole thing. It wouldn't be what it is without you :>

“Shiro, this is Keith,” is how Liason Allura introduces them, her hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. He’s stiff but trying to act like he’s not, and he takes Shiro’s hand—the metal one, he’s trying to be more natural with it—and shakes it firmly without flinching. “You’re going to be recovery companions.”  
  
“It’s nice to meet you,” Shiro says, trying to be friendly. Sometimes it's hard to do, when his partners come and go like a revolving door. He's pretty sure Keith will be gone just as quickly. He’s what his therapist calls “a member of the high rotation list”.  
  
_Meaning you don’t partner well with other recovery patients_ , his snooty pessimistic side comments. He shushes it.  
  
“Likewise,” Keith says, and Allura gives him a squinty little frown.  
  
“Now, as this is your first meeting, I’m going to facilitate your sharing. There are some things I think each of you needs to know about each other before we continue.”

x

It turns out Keith is also on the high rotation list. Allura doesn’t make them say how many times they’ve been passed from one partner to another, but Shiro imagines it’s a lot, if Keith’s finally landed on him.  
  
“I lost my arm to Galra medical malpractice” is what Shiro says, the bare bones of his past bundled neatly into eight words. It’s supposed to help him present his situation to people without driving him into an emotional spiral. Mostly he just feels like part of a bad hospital drama.  
  
Keith nods once, a short dip that makes Shiro believe he’s actually taking that with weight and consideration. Keith seems immensely sensitive, if very prickly, about the circumstances they're both in. He hasn’t said anything about Shiro not meeting his eyes yet, but maybe he won’t last long enough to get a chance. For now, Keith seems content to let Shiro have a conversation with his bangs.  
  
“I’m a Galra-Altean science experiment,” he says, and Shiro feels like he’s gotten the air punched out of him by his own metal arm. He misses Allura’s quiet tutting at Keith’s words, but Keith doesn’t do anything but sit in silence while he processes.  
  
That’s... that’s new.

Startled, he brings his head up, only to avoid meeting Keith’s gaze at the last second: eye contact is still touch and go. He forces himself to focus on the space just to the right of Keith’s head rather than his own lap or Keith’s hands. Shiro _wants_ to make a good first impression, at least a little. He doesn’t allow himself to waste time or over it, he just breathes out and _looks_ at Keith, right in the eye, and fights to keep the tension out of his shoulders.

“Okay then,” Shiro says, and nods. Keith nods back, just once, again, but his eyes don’t leave Shiro’s. They’re sharp, cutting, and purple, and Shiro thinks, _Oh, you can tell, can’t you,_ before he has to look away.

_Just like me._

x

The rest of the meeting goes like all the others have gone— _Shiro, Keith, give each other your contact information so you can keep in touch across the facility and between appointments. This way you’ll be able to update each other on your individual schedules, and plan for meetings outside of your weekly Liaison officiated ones_. They’re left “alone” by Allura to better get to know each other, but Keith, like Shiro, seems to have cottoned on to the fact that they being monitored by the unsubtle camera in the room.

“I guess they’re lucky we’re not the paranoid types,” Keith says, leaning back in his chair so that the front legs lift off the ground. Shiro nods, eyeing the wobble of that half an inch before it vanishes back into the carpet, chair legs down.

Shiro watches Keith watch him from the corner of his eye, watches the way his mouth twists up in consideration and thought while Shiro can’t make himself look at his face directly.

He’s tense, and he knows Keith can tell, despite not completely tracking the other man. _Part Galra_ rings through his head like a klaxon, and his mouth feels like it’s full of cotton.

“Listen,” says Keith, low, suddenly, like he’s trying to make it a secret in their not-so-private space. “If you want to trade partners I understand. The whole,” Shiro catches the motion of Keith’s hand, waving at himself, “the whole thing puts people off, especially here. I’m not looking to make this any harder than it already is.” For _you_ , Shiro thinks he hears, because if Keith is on the high rotation list _this_ is the reason why. Other patients look at him and, despite the human face, the human hands, the human _words_ —they look at him and see Galra, war criminal, terrorist, torturer.

Shiro knows because those are the same words swimming through his head, around and around and around, and all he can think of is the darkness of his cell and the glaring purple lights that had been all too familiar when he’d finally been rescued.

“Hey!” Keith snaps, and Shiro jerks, eyes locking onto his for one beat, two, before drifting to his ear. Keith's expression softens, and the brief agitation that pulled his shoulders up slides away.

“I’m serious. I don’t want to hurt you.”

 _I don’t want to hurt_ **_you_** , Shiro thinks, _and that’s far more likely_.

“It’s alright,” he says instead, trying for a smile. Keith’s mouth and nose scrunch up, like he doesn’t believe him, but Shiro continues on, “We should try anyway.”

x

They have a trial run of two weeks, which, supposedly, means the initial meeting, eight non-consecutive days of “outside meetings”, a mid-period group meeting with other pairs of patients in similar situations, and then the final meeting to decide if they want to continue their partnership or separate and move back into the rotation.

The problem, Shiro—and no doubt Keith—had found, was that the ‘high rotation’ list wasn’t very fast moving, and that it was a rare occurrence that another patient from another facility would be transferred in  _and_ be part of their “bracket”. Shiro had been on the waiting list for a partner for well over six weeks when Keith had arrived, and then it had been another two and a half before Keith had been evaluated and assigned a “priority designation”.

_It’s a danger level._

The message appears on his tablet the day after they’ve left Allura’s Liaison room, ostensibly from Keith. _Also hi, it’s Keith. My danger level is Defcon 1, high rotation._

Shiro finds himself almost smiling at that, and has gotten ready to reply when another message pinged in their two-way.

_I’ve been through 15 partners and 4 of Arus’s facilities. My favorite color is red and I like peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I’m lactose intolerant and am ambidextrous, and I like to read in the sun._

Shiro bites his lip, fingers hovering over the letters. Something in his chest has twisted up with the realization that these were pieces of Keith that he might not get to see if they agreed to part ways at the end of their two weeks. They were things that Keith thought were important enough to share, parts of himself that were almost soft. Even in the face of what he knew would be hanging heavy in Shiro’s mind.

It is also a way to introduce himself without forcing Shiro to deal with the embarrassment of not being able to meet Keith’s eyes.

That same twisty thing in his chest gives a warm twinge at the thought. Few of his partners had used their tablets to communicate, and fewer still had noticed Shiro’s aversion to eye contact and went out of their way to work around it.

 _Hi Keith_.

He stares at the too-short message, trying to think up things to share. Faced with suddenly providing random facts about himself Shiro abruptly struggles to find words.

_I’m also ‘Defcon 1’, and I’ve been through 23 partners, but I’ve always been at this Arus facility. My favorite color is silver, I like earl grey and cherry flavored ice cream. I’m not lactose intolerant, but I am allergic to perfume, and I’m only a little ambidextrous. I haven’t read anything good in a long time._

There’s a little pause where, Shiro assumes, Keith is deciding what to say. Their tablets don’t let them see if or when the other person is typing, but he knows Keith is seeing his texts from the little icons in the corner. He wonders if Keith is realizing that he’s only ‘a little ambidextrous’ because for awhile he didn’t have a right hand—a right arm—and if Keith is wondering how to bring that up, how to ask. It’s what Shiro would do, in Keith’s position.

Keith’s reply comes a moment later.

 _Well, I’ve got a lot of books_. _We’ll find you something._

And that isn’t what Shiro had been expecting at all.

x

Keith is the one who ends up arranging their outings on their off days, who keeps Shiro updated whenever he has to go into the labs to see his “Government Assigned Medical Professional”—Keith’s words, not Shiro’s. Keith gets called in for short visits a lot more often than Shiro does, probably, he admits, because they still aren’t one hundred percent sure about his biology.

“I get where they’re coming from, kinda,” he concedes during their second outing, carefully arranging glue and fuzzy pipets in a design Shiro can’t fathom yet. They’ve joined one of the facility’s never ending group bonding events, this one focusing on craft and creation to “help build from the destruction that brought them here’”, or something. Keith had tagged it as a thing to do on their shared calendar, and Shiro’s pretty sure it’s just because there’s hot glue and popsicle sticks. “But it doesn’t mean that I like them poking and prodding me every other day, or running tests and things.”

He sticks his tongue out for a moment while he weaves his glued pipe-cleaners together, and Shiro looks away entirely, not at all blushing.

“I know the feeling,” he eventually replies, shading in some abstract design with one of the numerous supplied markers. He’s not sure what the coloring page is supposed to be. It looks like space. “They did a lot with the arm when I came back.”

 _A lot_ , he thinks with emphasis. Days of testing alongside his psychiatric evals, doctors and electricians and engineers all trying to figure out how his arm did what it did and _why_ , always _why_.

Keith hums in agreement, and leans forward to root through a bucket of fake flower heads. He wears the summer issue of the patient uniform—sleeveless, high collared, thin but flexible.

 _And tight_. At least across his shoulders. Keith isn’t bulky by any means, but there’s no denying the muscles in his arms and back. Shiro has a flash of them covered in purple fur and has to stare down at his hands and breathe while Keith talks about something—something not appointments.

“... hey, Shiro?” There’s someone leaning into his view, someone with dark hair and bright eyes, mouth quirked down in a frown. Shiro looks to the left, avoiding Keith’s eyes.

“You know it’s okay, right?” Keith’s voice is kind, soft but firm. He believes what he’s saying. “You don’t have to look at me.”

Keith pulls away, back to his own space, and goes on to talk about this one Liaison he had, real spitfire— _Pigeon, Pidge, little demon suplexed me while I was having an episode_ —while Shiro gathers himself back together and breathes.

Keith ends up leading the conversation entirely, which is more a monologue of his thought process than anything else. Shiro can tell that he’s not expecting any answers because he’s mostly mumbling to himself— _what the fuck man, not like that, no we want this color, uh huh—_ and it’s endearing and heartwarming that he’s trying so hard.

None of Shiro’s partners have ever _tried_.

“This is for you,” Keith says at the end of the event, when the patients get cleared out for food, or check-ins, or whatever they’re scheduled for. He’s holding his project on his palms, and it takes Shiro a second to recognize the fuzzy pipe-cleaners, the flowers, the glitter. It’s a crown, kind of, only all the flowers are pale silver and white and the pipets are black, and it’s tilted at a funky angle where Keith accidentally elbowed it. It’s amazing. “Sorry it’s a mess.”

Keith looks at his hands and Shiro looks at his face; and it’s not eye contact but it’s close, and it’s on purpose.

Shiro puts his hands over Keith’s, fingers touching his wrists, and says, “Thank you, it’s perfect,” and looks down just in time to miss the red on Keith’s cheeks bloom and then vanish.

He puts it on and wears it back to his room, where, for the first time, the pale walls and the empty shelves actually _feel_ empty, like the emptiness matters somehow, now that he has something to find a place for.

x

Shiro had honestly never paid much attention to the activities the facility put on that weren’t mandatory. Too many of his companions had had issues with the crowds, or with noise, or with him—going to the events the Arus staff arranged for the patients to fill their days hadn’t been high on his list of priorities when all of them had seemed like things you had to have a partner to go to.

It had been easier, he’d thought, to simply ignore the activities. He participated in enough craft days and group share projects through the mandatory therapy cycle; why bother with more reminders of how dysfunctional his partnerships were, or how bad he was at socializing? It seemed like just more stress on relationships that Shiro wasn’t particularly invested in: partially because he _expected_ them to go south. What was the point in trying to make friends with people who would request to have you cycled out at the next Liaison meeting?

He’s seeing differently, now that Keith’s dragged him out to interact with their “peers”. In fact, the majority of the patients that come to the facility run events come alone, meeting up with other solo friends.

“Most of the partners get supervision and head into town,” Keith explains, leaning back on his hands while the end credits to a film play. Something about pirates—Shiro wasn’t entirely paying attention. “I had a partner who used me to go to an arcade near a different facility; it’s easier to go into town if you’ve got a partner for some reason. Probably because they have an excuse to send a supervisor set after us.”

Shiro considers the bored looking patrol teams he sometimes sees walking the perimeter, hats shielding against the spring sunlight. They’re perfectly nice people, he knows; but he also knows that they’re security for those patients who aren’t quite ready to leave the safety of the facility—the truly dangerous ones. He can’t imagine it’s a particularly enjoyable task, and he can see how just walking around in circles or monitoring craft days could get plenty boring.

“We can go down sometime, if you want,” Keith says, standing and offering him a hand. Shiro takes it and gets confused by Keith’s little grin until he realizes he took it with his right, this time without hesitation. “They’ve got a carnival that comes through at the beginning of summer, supposedly, and I think it’d be fun.”

x

Shiro learns more about the galaxy, botany, art history, knives, and the pervasive presence of glitter that first week than he has at any other time of his life. It’s only after their second film—still about pirates, even if it _is_ a raunchy romantic musical—that he realizes that Keith is floundering about what to pick. It’s obvious that the lectures, craft days, and movie nights that they’ve gone to have all appealed to Keith, but it’s when Keith is scrolling through the facility calendar, glancing at Shiro, that he finally sees that Keith’s a little lost.

He’s shared some things about himself that he thinks Keith will appreciate—mostly about his family and where he grew up, and funny stories from school —though he’s not sure if “Galra-Altean science experiment” means Keith had friends growing up, or _any_ kind of home life. But he hasn’t shared a lot about what he likes as a person, and that’s left Keith holding the reins regarding their activities.

The worst part is that in that moment, watching Keith frown and bite his lip while reading over the information blurbs attached to each event, Shiro can recall several texts where Keith had been probing for hints about Shiro’s hobbies, albeit clumsily. He hadn’t come right out and asked _what do you like?_ , but he’d thrown out movie titles and music, and Shiro had responded amicably but ambivalently, mostly because he hadn’t really had an opinion.

Keith, Shiro was finding, wasn’t always the best at personal things. Potentially sparing Shiro the discomfort of being his partner by nipping their sessions in the bud at their first meeting? No problem. Keith had being blunt down to an art, despite his apparent fascination with sharp objects.

Asking someone who wasn’t quite a friend what kind of things they liked so that he could suggest appropriately related activities? A little beyond him.

“Here,” Shiro says, holding a hand out for the tablet. Keith looks at him, confused, but hands it over anyway. “I’ll pick a couple for next week.”

Keith’s eyes widen briefly, followed by a smile pulling up one side of his mouth, and Shiro has to look away from him and at the event display to hide the twist of his own lips. He can feel his shoulders hunching slightly, defensive of the warmth he can feel across his cheeks, but Keith doesn’t say anything while he scrolls through, carefully adding activities to their roster.

x

“I am confirming that I am willing to proceed with partner therapy with Takashi Shirogane,” Keith says at their two-week meeting with Allura, his voice unwavering under her scrutiny. Shiro had suspected as much, even had a text from Keith saying so ( _I’d like to stay with you, if you’re willing_ ). It’s not exactly a surprise, except for in every way that it is.

His heart hurts. He hadn’t imagined that hearing that from a therapy partner would mean so much, but his chest feels too tight all of a sudden, and Shiro thinks, abruptly, that he might cry.

“Shiro?” Allura asks, turning her attention to him after another long moment of analyzing Keith. Shiro startles, blinking quickly to dispel whatever moisture may have gathered.

“Y-yeah?” he asks, but his voice is rough with emotion so he swallows, tries again. “Yes?”

Allura looks at him, face unreadable but non-judgemental, and says, “Are you willing to continue as Keith Kogane’s therapy partner?”

 _Of course_ , he wants to say, wants to shout, but it’s trapped between his lungs and his heart. _Of course of course of course_.

“I do,” he manages instead. “I am willing to proceed with partner therapy with Keith Kogane.”

Allura smiles at him, but the effect it has is diminished by the look on Keith’s face when Shiro turns to look at him, _meeting his eyes_ , all warmth and excitement. Keith smiles, and his entire face lights up, and Shiro has to look away for an entirely new reason.

x

The ISRR facility in Arus is located on a hill by the sea overlooking several towns, its sprawling compound and spires glittering in the sun. It’s nice out, warm but not overly hot thanks to the ocean breeze moving across the open hills. Thick, cottony clouds pass overhead, casting slow moving shadows on the grass below. It’s idyllic, soft and cheery looking from the windows of the facility. Keith mentions plans for some kind of three-dimensional puzzle building activity, but when Shiro’s attention keeps drifting toward the windows he puts the kit away and goes to find a staff member.

Shiro’s so caught up in thinking about _outside_ , a relatively foreign idea after months of apathy about his surroundings, that he doesn’t even notice Keith leaving. It’s only when he comes back with a Liaison Assistant in tow that Shiro realizes how obvious he’s been, and he can’t meet Keith’s eyes for more than a beat before he has to look away in embarrassment. They’ve been making some good strides in the direct eye contact department, but Shiro still finds himself defaulting to looking at Keith’s forehead and shoulders when he gets nervous.

The Liaison Assistant accompanies them to the activities quarter, answering Keith’s questions about good places to go on the lawns that aren’t particularly populated just then, about the weather forecast, and if they should bring sunscreen or not.

They end up on one of the gently sloping hills that overlooks the ocean, spread out on a picnic blanket, a basket of food for the both of them. Shiro sits beside Keith while they work their way through the lunch the activities director had issued them. Shiro casts an odd shadow between them, a floppy straw hat perched on his head at Keith’s insistence.

 _I don’t burn_ , he’d explained on the walk through the gardens immediately around the facility, looking pretty cool in the pair of sunglasses he’d decided to take. _It’s part of being a genetically engineered being or something._ He’d shrugged, looking nonchalant, and continued with, _Whatever, I save on sunscreen._

Not that they actually had to _pay_ for anything at the facility, but Shiro took it for what it was.  
  
“Can I ask you a question?” Shiro asks, holding his sandwich up almost like a shield. Keith has been nothing if not accommodating these past few weeks, in his own way at least, and they’re nearing Shiro’s record for keeping a recovery partner. They’ve apparently already passed Keith’s, although from what Shiro understands that’s not actually a high bar.  
  
Keith, sprawling beside him on his back, arms behind his head and sunglasses pushed up into his hair, peels one eye open. He assesses Shiro’s face—and his defensive sandwich—for a good thirty seconds before his eye slides shut again.  
  
“Shoot,” he says, and stifles a yawn against his arm. It has gotten a little warmer out, with fewer clouds above them, and both of them have taken off their jackets and their shoes to relax on the grass. Shiro can see the play of the muscles in Keith’s shoulders as he lays down on his back, the way his hair fans out against the blanket. His shirt rides up, just a little, not even enough to show skin, but the threat - the temptation of it is enough to have Shiro flushing, looking away. The edge of his sleeve rests on his palm, and he presses his fingertips against it.

It’s a question Shiro has had almost from day one, and he attributes it to a natural curiosity about the topic and a not so small sense of resentment, even if he hates that he feels it. Shiro’s Galra inflicted wound is obvious, as easy to identify as the Arus facility against the coast, and he’s not a little bit jealous that Keith’s apparent affliction is much easier to hide.

 _I want to be able to walk through the town without long sleeves and gloves,_ he’d said that week, unable to look at Keith even though they were basically sitting side by side. Allura had nodded, face neutral, even though he knew she could see Keith’s face too. _I don’t—it’s not_ **_fair_ ** _how obvious I am._

 _I want to be able to hide, too_.

And Keith, he had—he’d looked—  
  
“What did you mean by science experiment?”  
  
Shiro blurts it all in a rush, eyes closed so he doesn’t have to watch Keith’s face, and then takes a huge bite of his sandwich. The bread sticks to his dry mouth, but it’s better than letting his words run away with him.  
  
There are several beats of silence before a noise—Keith’s snort, Shiro thinks—and, “I mean, like this.”  
  
He waits for Shiro’s eyes to open, his own dark blue, almost purple gaze still quietly assessing, before he lets out a long sigh, like he’s been keeping spare oxygen in the corners of his lungs and he’s finally letting it out.  
  
As he does so his skin shifts and ripples, the pale color parting in splotches until there’s none of the human skin left, just a very vivid, dark Galra purple in its place.  
  
Shiro’s breath catches in his throat.  
  
There’s fear in him, a visceral, primal thing. His spine tenses and his arm aches and he’s struck with the desire to run, despite the fact that his body has locked itself down. He doesn’t want to be here, out in the open, where anyone can see, _where they can get to him_. He can feel his heart thundering in his chest, in his ears, and the familiar bright purple-white light of his arm glows in the corner of his eye. There’s a ripping sound, some fabric, but Shiro can’t focus enough to try and locate it, not when he can see them, the lights, those ever-present overhead lights, giving everything grisly shadows, highlighting long white hair and crooked, gnarled hands, _reaching_ —  
  
“Shiro, it’s me. Just me.”  
  
It’s Keith, Keith’s strong, no-nonsense voice, blunt to the point of bludgeoning. Shiro doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, but he knows Keith’s voice, even though it’s coming out of a Galra purple face with Galra yellow on yellow eyes. It’s not _her_ face, streaked with red like blood, perpetually hooded. The atmosphere isn’t purple but blue, the sky clear, and even when a cloud passes over them it doesn’t diminish the differences between _then_ and _now._  
  
Shiro didn’t know Keith before the capture. Shiro had no idea he existed. It’s not a dream, a nightmare concocted by his kidnappers. There’s no hidden blade, no ulterior motive, no sick, twisted laughter ringing in his ears. Just Keith, laying on the grass, crumbs from his sandwiches— _guy eats like he’s starving all the time_ , Shiro thinks, remembers thinking fondly—on his shirt.  
  
He hasn’t moved. It’s not an attack.  
  
It’s real.  
  
Shiro breaths out.  
  
“My Galra lineage comes from before the war,” Keith explains, yellow gaze sliding away. He pushes his sunglasses down on his face, hiding his eyes, but Shiro can still tell that Keith hasn’t looked back at him. “They went full on eugenics with the purest Galra lines to make my gene-donors. They didn’t have the same thing with the Altean POWs they’d captured, so they just threw their prime Galra DNA in with the strongest Altean and hoped it stuck.”  
  
He shrugs, forcibly nonchalant. “Or something. I only read the file on it, I didn’t get to see where that part of it happened.”

The silence stretches between them, long and tense, where Keith ignores Shiro’s shaking breaths and picks absently at the grass. It’s strange, surreal, watching his hand sink into the green and fiddle with it before moving to a slightly different spot. Aimless, but deliberate nonetheless. Keith’s other hand has come to rest on his stomach.

Both his hands are within Shiro’s view.

“What do you remember?” Shiro asks, voice barely above a whisper. This knowledge is secret, intimate—it’s not immediately visible, out in the open like Shiro’s arm.

Except for the way it is, just then.

All of it, he tells Shiro. Keith remembers all of it. He remembers the druid and the scientist who raised him, out in a shack in the desert. He remembers them trying to erase his memories of their existence, of his _entire life_ , before they sent him out into the human world to join the Garrison and the war front.

“They wanted a durable spy,” Keith says, voice carefully blank. Shiro can imagine the bitterness that might once have been there. “They didn’t get it, so they vanished, and left me to die.”

They fall silent, then, and return to their food. Eventually, Keith rallies them inside to watch a movie in one of the community rooms, and that’s when they discover that Shiro had popped holes in the blanket during those first few minutes after Keith had changed form.

“Not the worst thing that’s happened to facility equipment, I’m sure,” Keith says reassuringly. Shiro doesn’t say anything, just smiles a little, and lets Keith lead him by the hand to one of the couches in the room.

They may sit with the same distance between them as they had that afternoon, but Shiro feels abruptly closer and further away than ever before.

x

“Do you want to find them?” Shiro asks, days after their conversation on the lawn. They’re in one of the libraries, trying to find a book that Shiro will like enough to try reading. Keith looks human again, although he does have glasses perched on his nose. They’re thin, wireframe things, and almost distract Shiro enough to make him forget the rest of his question. “The scientist and the druid who raised you?”  
  
Keith shrugs, attention purposefully on the book titles in front of him. “Not really. Sometimes, when I’m angry about having to be here,”— _part of the program for those wounded or traumatized by the Galra_ , Shiro guesses—“but I don’t know what they’d say. They wanted me for science—it wasn’t like who I was actually mattered.”  
  
And that—Shiro knows that feeling.  
  
He slings an arm, the human one, around Keith’s shoulders and draws him into a hug.  
  
Keith doesn’t lean away.

x

Keith’s major differences when he’s not “human” are these: He doesn’t have fur, but he has big Galra ears. They’re big, conical things almost as large as Keith’s head, tipped with fur and painfully expressive. He’s smaller than they are, but about average for an Altean. He’s more flexible than both, and has the Altean ability to adapt to other worlds. Supposedly, at least.  
  
“I’ve never been off planet, not since I got sent here,” he says, looking wistfully out the common room window. It’s dark inside, but the stars are bright and abundant beyond the glass. “Too much Galra in me, too much rage.”  
  
Shiro thinks they both have the right to be pretty pissed off, but he just runs his hands through Keith’s hair, scratching as he goes. It’s a slightly new development; Shiro isn’t sure if he’s taking advantage of or not, but it’s something both he and Keith seem to enjoy. It’s strange, because he _knows_ Keith is, on some level, a large space cat, despite being a person, too. He wonders if that’s why it’s soothing for him, or for both of them, like maybe some little parts of themselves need to pretend at a different kind of normal.

It’s been weeks since Keith showed him his Galra form out on the lawn, the short, crisp days of spring creeping toward the longer days of summer. It’s a slightly longer season on Arus, with more geographically varied and lighter showers than Shiro remembers from Earth. But the increase in temperature and the longer days, like the other adjustments he has dealt with since that day, are easy to acclimate to.

He wouldn’t be lying if he were to say that things changed after Keith showed him his Galra form, but it didn’t feel like those changes were particularly large by themselves. They’d told Allura about their newly achieved level of trust, of course, but only after several days of deliberating about it.

 _If they know, they’ll probably use it to try and work through some parts of your trauma_.

The message arrived late one night, Keith clearly having chewed over the idea for several hours.

_I don’t want you to be subject to that if you don’t have to be. It doesn’t ever have to come out again._

Shiro had been brutally honest with himself then, analyzing how he felt about the situation, remembering Keith’s voice coming out of a Galra mouth. It had terrified him, and it was likely to keep terrifying him until he could finally move past it; but he knew they’d never reach that point if he didn’t at least try.

What had worried him, too, was how Keith had referred to the situation. “ _It_ ”, like his Galra skin was something else, some _one_ separate from himself. And maybe it was. Maybe that’s how Keith had dealt with his dual nature, with the tests and tampering and the memories he almost didn’t have.

It was easier to think about the monster you carried if it didn’t have your name.

Shiro had eventually texted back, trying to show how much he had deliberated and considered his options in just two short sentences.

_If you’re willing, I think it would be alright._

_If you’re there, I think I’ll be okay._

It had made him feel naked, a little. Bare in a way he wasn’t used to, and it didn’t help that it was late, and every quiet minute that went by without a response felt like an eternity.

Keith took awhile to reply, and Shiro figured that meant he was weighing his own options, taking all aspects into consideration now that he had all the information he could have.

In the end, Keith texts back right as Shiro’s drifting off, startling him back into bleary awareness. It’s not much, but it’s enough. It makes Shiro’s heart hurt with warmth, and he has to bury his face in his pillow to try and hide the raging blush he knows is there, even if no one is around to see it.

_All right. For you._

So they’d let Allura know at their next joint meeting, and Keith was right: they did want him to shift into his Galra form to help Shiro overcome his anxiety about the race in general.

After they told her, Allura had considered them for a long moment from her seat directly across from the couch Keith and Shiro shared. He used to think of it as just a way for her to keep an eye on them both, seeing as the couch wasn’t that long and they couldn’t sit too far apart without perching on the arms.

In that moment, it had felt almost like they were a united front facing off against her, even though Shiro knew that Allura wasn’t an enemy to be fought, more a guide to be considered. It wasn’t a thought Shiro planned on voicing to Allura, although he considered pulling it out in group, where the sentiment would be better received among his peers.

(Keith, he knew, would definitely agree.)

“There are many Galra immigrants among the settled planets, more so now that the Empire no longer strictly controls travel,” Allura had finally begun.

She had looked at Shiro for a brief, sharp moment, before turning her attention to Keith.

“However, I think we should also address your distance from your Galra heritage, Keith,” she continued, and that—that blindsided Shiro. He hadn’t considered that he and Allura would have similar ideas about how Keith viewed, or doesn’t view, his genetic makeup. It seemed odd, in retrospect, that Keith chose to look human when he was Galra-Altean, but Shiro hadn’t really questioned it. It was Keith’s choice, after all, a decision likely made just as much for the comfort of others as for Keith himself.

Keith had been carefully relaxed, so much so that Shiro could tell he was fighting for control. It didn’t take any specific kind of genius to figure out that Keith didn’t want to look Galra any more than Shiro wanted his metal arm, and it was obvious that the two of them had been doing their best with the situations they’d been given.

 _Well,_ Shiro had thought, reconsidering, _maybe not completely our best. Ignoring something definitely isn’t dealing with it, that’s for sure_.

“And if I don’t want to?” Keith had asked. It was the first time Shiro had heard him be anything but bluntly amicable with Allura. He’d sounded, in that moment, at once frightened and angry, and, maybe just to Shiro, a touch worried.

Allura hadn’t responded to any of it, had simply stared Keith down for a moment before looking down at her PADD and tapping away briefly. “We can’t force you to confront your problems on anyone’s time but your own, Keith. But,” and she’d looked back up with some soft, knowing thing behind her eyes, “I can tell you that the steps you will make forward will be smaller if you push this to the side.”

Keith hadn’t reacted then beyond the twitching of the fingers in his lap, but when Allura had moved on to discussing including Keith’s Galra form as part of their regular therapy, Keith had participated, albeit reluctantly.  
  
And maybe that was a sign of Keith's own progress. Though reserved with Allura (and even more with others at the facility), as if balancing on a knife edge for control—of himself, the situation—Keith was more willing to relax his guard and let Shiro take the lead when they were together. Keith allowing Shiro to comb his fingers through his hair was a sure mark of this, Shiro thought.  
  
The casual touches had been another change since their picnic on the hill, although he wasn’t sure where exactly it came from. There had been little touches here and there prior to that day, but the first time Shiro actively remembers seeking Keith’s touch was after the first official Exposure session, after Keith had changed back. He had just been sitting in a chair the whole time, right across from Shiro, but Allura had told Shiro to look at him, really look at him, and recognize the differences between Galra-Presenting Keith and Human-Presenting Keith.

It had been unnerving, even though Keith either had his eyes closed or was looking away for the duration of it, and when he had changed back Shiro had reached out to him and taken his hand, telling his mind that yes, it was Keith. Sweet, always hungry Keith, who loved craft glitter and knives and hadn’t had any part in what Shiro had gone through. Keith was safe.

 _What does safe mean, though?_ Shiro thought, dragging his fingers through Keith’s hair again. A faint rumble worked its way out of Keith’s chest, barely audible even in the quiet of empty community room. _Safe for whom? In comparison to what? Safe_ **_how?_ **

He twists a lock of Keith’s hair gently, distantly thinking about how soft it was, how thick. The fact that he was _touching_ Keith was what preoccupied him. It wasn’t something he’d imagined doing all those weeks ago when they’d met.

The touches had only increased in frequency since that first session, even outside of their joint therapy, and sometimes Keith would even shift forms while they walked the gardens or laid out on the lawns. He only did it when they were sure no one else could see, and he only did it after asking if Shiro was okay with it at least three times. Sometimes they would just lay on the grass and breathe; Shiro with his eyes closed, working through the knowledge that there was a Galra next to him, even though he couldn’t see him, even though he was vulnerable.

Sometimes Keith would sit cross-legged on the ground while Shiro held one of his hands, shaking from the sheer act of _touching_ him. Keith never said anything, never demanded anything of him, never tried to offer guiding words like Allura would. Keith would just wait, eyes closed, ears relaxed, while Shiro grappled with the completely alien hand he held between his own sweaty fingers.

 _It probably isn’t the best idea to go outside of Allura’s guidelines too far_ , Shiro thinks with a soft snort. He wonders if she knew that they’d taken to touching each other more when Keith looked human, too, or if it was something they got to keep for themselves.

Keith snuffles against his thigh, rolling over so that his nose is pressed against Shiro’s hip, and Shiro has a beat to think, _Dangerous how?_ before it registers that Keith is asleep.

Shiro feels like he should say something, should wake Keith up and send him to bed so they can both get ready for the next day—the carnival Keith had mentioned ages ago is finally in town—but… he can’t. Keith’s face is free of stress, of wariness and weariness, and Shiro thinks, _I did that, he trusted me enough to protect him in his sleep, he trusts me_.

The thought makes warmth surge through his chest, up his neck and into his eyes, and he has to bite his lip to keep from crying.

It doesn’t last, but when the tears start falling, Shiro can pretend that Keith’s arms were always wrapped around his waist. Keith’s breathing never wavers, and Shiro lets himself cry until there’s nothing left.

x

Keith doesn’t say anything about Shiro’s swollen eyes the next morning, just takes Shiro by the hand and leads him to the faculty office so that they can ask for town passes and get assigned an escort.

“We’ve got two hours to get ready,” Keith says, clipping Shiro’s “pass”, a slim silver tracking band, around his wrist. “I’d suggest some good walking shoes, we’re going to be there all day and probably part of the night.” Keith touches his shoulder briefly before it slides into a hug, one that feels edged with just enough excitement to let Shiro know he isn’t the only one looking forward to leaving the walls of the facility behind, if only for a day.

Shiro gets his comfiest shoes and his lightest shirt, compromising with jeans he hasn’t worn in months. They’re snug when he slides into them, a product of having been left in his drawers forever. When he goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and he gets to see himself in one of the full-length mirrors, the first thought he has is _I look like I’m going on a date_.

He’d never realized exactly _how fast_ his face turned red, but it is fascinating to watch in a slightly terrifying way.

It’s true, however much he finds himself shocked at the idea. The pale blue, almost white fabric is soft, thin, and—and _clingy_ , he thinks in despair, looking at how the medium vee exposes his collarbones, and especially the way it lays over his metal arm. It’s almost too much, seeing the limb come out of a completely normal shirt instead of the facility issue long-sleeves, or the slightly more revealing regulation tees.

He’s about to book it back to his room and change into sweats and a hoodie, screw the heat, when the bathroom door opens: and it’s Keith, of course.

“I knocked on your door but you didn’t answer,” Keith says when he recognizes that it’s Shiro in the bathroom and not a stranger. Shiro gets to watch the moment Keith realizes exactly what he’s wearing, but Shiro’s also sort of gawking at Keith, who’s apparently found a way to get the facility shirt in a deep red. Shiro thought the black sleeveless shirt was something almost indecent on Keith, but the same shirt in red?

Shiro spins around, clenching his jaw against saying anything untoward. Keith is his friend, and just because he’s sort of noticed Keith was attractive—from the first time they met, really, but especially since that day at the craft table with the flower crown—didn’t mean he could just stare at him like a piece of meat.

That was beyond rude.

Keith makes a noise like he’s coughing up some overcooked facility food, his voice a little raw when he asks, “Are you ready?”

“Mmmhmm,” Shiro hums, taking a deep breath through his nose. “Let me rinse my mouth and I’ll be out.”

“Okay,” Keith says, and Shiro doesn’t see him leave but he does hear the door click shut behind him.

 _You can do this, Takashi,_ he tells himself, staring down his reflection. _It’s just a trip downtown. You can do this_.

He really, really hopes he can.

x

Any awkwardness Shiro feels walking down to the town with Keith is banished when they finally enter the streets that have been decorated for the carnival. Strings of lights illuminate the paths in complex swirling designs, with glittering paper streamers interwoven between them. The cobbled paths are lined with vendors selling everything from food to fortunes to face painting, and, at the town square, a large tent has been erected, its green and blue peaks reaching up toward the starry sky with gold-tipped spires.

“Acrobats, fire jugglers, knife throwing, all of that’s in there,” Keith says, right hand pointing with his soft, chocolate smelling confectionary. His left has its fingers woven through with Shiro’s robot arm, but Shiro stopped being nervous about it when he’d seen a young boy run by with a prosthetic decorated with tiny lights.

“Where do you want to go?” Keith asks. They’d stopped by for food first, but Keith had wanted to show Shiro the layout of the carnival before they committed to any activity.

 _Always trying to comfort_ , Shiro thinks fuzzily, still shocked by the sheer vibrancy of the lights, the people, the performers walking the streets on stilts, or their hands, or each other’s hands.

“Face painting?” Shiro suggests. He needs to sit down, but it’s hard to spot any of the benches he’s sure are present along the square.

“All right,” Keith says, turning them toward one of the face painting stalls. He’d eyed them critically earlier before picking his favorite, although how he’d decided Shiro couldn’t fathom.

“What would you like today?” the vendor owner asks, and Shiro thinks he can see why Keith likes this one best. The vendor is missing two fingers on their non-dominant hand and an eye, but they smile down at Shiro like they’re having the time of their life.

“Surprise me?” he suggests, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. The vendor’s brows go up, but they nod and tell him to close his eyes. The gentle pressure of Keith’s hand appears at his shoulder when he does, and Shiro relaxes into the touch.

It’s hard to tell how long he sits there, the faint feeling of cool paint being drawn across his brow, his cheeks, his nose. Eventually, the vendor owner claps their hands and proclaims him done, and when Shiro opens his eyes there’s a mirror in front of him.

“A lion?” He asks, turning his head this way and that. He likes it. He feels… confident, looking at his blocky, minimalist lion face paint. He feels good.

“Can I match him?” Keith asks when he takes a seat. Shiro didn’t think he’d actually go through with it, but he shouldn’t be surprised. _Where do you want to go?_ he’d asked, but it had been more: _where do you want to point me?_

“Of course!” The vendor says, and gets to work immediately. It’s different, watching someone have their face painted and knowing what the picture will already be. Shiro watches as the lion’s face takes shape beneath the tiny brushes, the colors blooming across Keith’s skin.

It’s not long before he’s standing, eyes open and curious, peering at the mirror the vendor holds out. The majority of Keith’s lion is red where Shiro’s is black, each accented by white and pale blue, and Keith beams at him when he steps away from the chair.

“I like it,” Keith says, and when he takes Shiro’s hand it makes his heart race.

“I like it a lot.”

x

They wander around after that, watching puppet shows for children and grabbing kebabs of spicy sweetmeats. There are games, too, and they alternate winning each other prizes. Keith excels at the knife throwing and the darts, but Shiro is better at getting rings around bottlenecks and a strange version of skeeball.

They’re walking along a less populated sidestreet, arms full of prizes caught for one another, and Keith has just opened his mouth to say something when a terrible _crack_ makes Shiro jump, haul spilling from his arms. All at once he goes from happy to _panicked_ , and it doesn’t help that the noise sounds again, closer this time. Shiro’s spine feels like ice, and he can tell his arm is activating, can see it out of the corner of his eye, but he can’t find the source of the noise, but he knows _they’re coming for him, they found him, they’re going to take him back to—to that place, to that woman with her_ **_claws_ ** _and her_ **_eyes_ ** _and he’s never going to see sunlight again, never, he’s going to d-_

Someone grabs his shoulder, and Shiro swings without thinking, purple hand glowing, and he has a moment of sheer blind terror before the scene snaps into focus.

He’s standing. Outside. His arm is active, purple, pulsing. There’s a—there’s a Galra on the ground, shocked. Holding its face.

There’s a Galra on the ground in front of him.

Keith is on the ground in front of him.

“Oh god,” he whispers, dropping to his knees. Keith is staring at him, holding his face, and Shiro—Shiro _hates himself_ so much just then, hates his hand and his arm and his whole person for hurting Keith.

“Hey, none of that,” Keith says, and Shiro hadn’t even realized he’d been speaking, but he must have if Keith is responding. “I knew—I should have warned you. I didn’t think the fireworks would be good for you,” he looks a little rueful, but he rolls forward onto his knees and takes Shiro’s face in his hands. “I was just going to tell you, too,” he whispers in the space between them. It would almost make Shiro want to laugh, if he didn’t feel so overwhelmingly empty inside.

“Shiro, look at me,” Keith commands, and Shiro does, he can’t not, even though he’s afraid to see what he’s done to him. There are no visible marks on Keith’s face, but it’s dark and his skin is purple, so it’s not like Shiro would be able to recognize it anyway. Keiths yellow-on-yellow eyes are fierce, especially so close, and Shiro can finally distinguish the pupils from the iris and the sclera.

He can see it when those eyes flick away, feels Keith make some kind of motion like he’s waving someone off and—their escort. Shiro had completely forgotten about them. He’d never be allowed beyond the facility walls again.

“No, shhh,” Keith shushes, voice tender. “Look at me, look.” Shiro does. There’s a tiny understanding smile on Keith’s mouth. “I knew the fireworks wouldn’t be good for you, but I lost track of time. I’m sorry. None of this is your fault. None of it.”

Shiro wants to argue, because that is _completely untrue_ , but Keith grabs Shiro’s robotic hand and brings it up to hold the cheek he just struck. He does it without even flinching, even though the joints of the hand still glow faintly purple.

“I trust you, Shiro. I know this wasn’t something you wanted to do.” Shiro swallows, eyes hot, and Keith keeps whispering on about how much he trusts Shiro, how good Shiro is, how it’s alright, everything’s going to be alright, nothing has to change for the worse, they can get through this.

“I trust you, Shiro,” Keith repeats, looking into Shiro’s eyes. He’s so close. Shiro hadn’t ever noticed that his eyelashes were purple, too.

“I—I love you.”

Shiro—he’s got to be dreaming, because _no way_ did Keith just say that after Shiro hit him in the face.

But there he is, looking accepting and kind and open, bare to Shiro in a way that’s almost scary, almost makes Shiro want to stand and run.

“I-I—” his throat is closing up, he can’t, the words won’t come out, they aren’t _there_ —

“Shh,” Keith says, rubbing his thumbs over Shiro’s cheeks. When did he stop holding Shiro’s hand to his own face? When did Shiro start holding him alone? “I know—I know you’re not there yet.” Keith doesn’t sound bitter, or mad, or anything close. He’s just soft, understanding, with that same blunt way with words Shiro has come to expect in all situations.

“I’ll wait for you,” Keith says, and a sob shakes Shiro before he can stop it. He can feel the tears as they run over Keith’s thumbs. “I promise.”

They stay there kneeling for a long time, Keith with his forehead pressed against Shiro’s, rubbing below Shiro’s eyes with his thumbs, not speaking. They wait out the fireworks, and when the last explosion fades around them Keith offers Shiro his hand and they stand, together.


End file.
